OldPoleBurner Wrote:
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> Granted: if she had waited until the gate went up,
> she wouldn't have been killed. But for peet sake
> - she was only six years old - what do you
> expect!

You're mistaken. It's clearly stated in the original post, as well as in the linked article, that the victim's age was 15, not six.

> Besides, if she could have seen or heard the damn
> train, it is highly unlikely that even a six year
> old would have started across. And the only
> reason she could not see the train was because of
> that stupid sound wall - period!

As shown in the photo that's included in the article, there's ample opportunity to observe a train approaching from the left . . . if one choses to look.

> After forty years in this industry, I can tell
> you this much about grade crossing safety: All
> accidents (no exception) are the result of a whole
> chain of events, not just one singular stupidity.
> If any one of those events doesn't happen, the
> accident doesn't happen. Usually, they don't all
> happen at once, which often leads to complacency
> and breaking a rule "just this time". But when
> they all happen together - BOOM!
>
> You succeed at preventing accidents only by acting
> to break as many links in that chain as possible;
> because at any time, like it or not, believe it or
> not, somebody or something will screw up. But
> even if there is a screw up, and the chain of
> events is still proactively broken somewhere else;
> there still will be no accident.
>
> But at this particular crossing, the most
> important prevention of all - being able to see
> trains coming - is all botched up big time. An
> accident here was absolutely CERTAIN - in a matter
> of hours or days. In fact, this death was
> flatly predicted well over a year ago - By me. I
> just didn't know the name of the first victim. It
> was not a surprise to anyone - except maybe myopic
> politicians. Virtually any signal engineer
> seeing that grade crossing would have come to the
> same conclusion as I did. It is just too bad that
> the city was adamant that it stay that way

If this is such a dangerous crossing, why aren't all pedestrians being stuck by trains there?

Could you provide us with some factual data showing the number of train vs. pedestrian collisions at crossings with sound walls versus crossings without them?

> It seems you are expecting a mere six year old
> inexperienced child to be able to make up for
> "CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE" on the part of those city
> officials. That is something many adults couldn't
> even do - are they to be condemned to death for
> lack of expertise in recognizing a hazardous
> conditions. I don't think so.

Again . . . she wasn't six. If she really were six, my question would be why she was allowed by her parents to be walking there without being accompanied by an adult, or at least someone older. But she was 15. It seems to me that that's certainly old enough to know what the gates and flashing lights mean and not to walk onto the tracks when they're operating.